VIV GROSKOP: Wow, Posh! That was an amazing regeneration (...and you didn't even need a Tardis)

PUBLISHED: 19:18 EST, 23 November 2013 | UPDATED: 19:18 EST, 23 November 2013

View
comments

Victoria Beckham: as a working mother and entrepreneur, she has turned out to be an unexpectedly interesting British success story

There's nothing like a closet clear out to make you feel like a new woman. Even if you’re Victoria Beckham.

Although when we’re talking about thousands of pounds’ worth of designer bits and bobs, and hundreds of shoes, it must feel more like a Doctor Who regeneration than a makeover.

I keep expecting to see footage of her emerging from a Tardis near Harvey Nichols, light pouring out of her forehead, demanding custard and fish fingers. Not that she would eat them.

The scenes after Victoria’s generous donation to a West London branch of the British Red Cross in aid of Typhoon Haiyan were close to extraterrestrial.

There was a mountain of shoes by Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo, leopardskin straps all twisted around each other, and a Dolce & Gabbana lime-green cowboy jacket.

There was a lot of lime green generally. In the name of colour-blindness, why, Victoria, why?

There was so much stuff that if you looked hard enough you’d probably find Tom Baker’s multi-coloured knitted scarf, only a Roberto Cavalli version with an animal-print lining.

The endless racks of hideous Spice Girls outfits, many emblazoned, oxymoronically enough, with the word ‘Posh’, had one major drawback: ‘They might be too small for most people to wear,’ warned a shop assistant.

Fans also expressed their disappointment that most items ‘seemed to date from the WAG days’. Oh dear me. The first rule of the WAG days is: We don’t talk about the WAG days.

Suddenly, though, how far away those dark – or, rather, tangerine – days seem. We’ve all been embarrassing versions of ourselves – and binned the photos to prove it.

But Victoria must look back on her family album from the late 1990s and cringe.

How times have changed since the gilded thrones and naked self-portraits in sculpture (the Beckhams’ artistic wedding cake topper) at their £500,000 purple-themed nuptials 14 years ago when a flag with their initials was fluttering above an Irish castle.

Once upon a time Victoria was a short-haired, super-skinny, orb-boobed version of her then arch-rival Jordan. I can’t imagine Victoria gives Katie Price a second thought these days. And certainly no one in the group has been keener to pretend the Spice Girls never happened.

This charity haul marks a successful regeneration. It has always been obvious that she’s not ‘like the rest of us’.

The scenes after Victoria's generous donation to a West London branch of the British Red Cross in aid of Typhoon Haiyan were close to extraterrestrial

Otherwise she would have put the lot on eBay – which is where much of her Red Cross stuff has ended up. Most of it still for charity, thank goodness.

But perhaps she’s not quite as different as she’s been made out to be, either. The most extravagant thing her kids are allowed at birthdays is a bouncy castle. She never misses a chance to mention her bunions in interviews.

But most of all, as a working mother and entrepreneur, she has turned out to be an unexpectedly interesting British success story: her fashion business had a turnover of £15 million last year.

At next month’s British Fashion Awards she is nominated for two accolades (Brand of the Year and Red Carpet Designer). Weirdly, she has ended up being one of the classiest stars around.

In a world where Miley Cyrus makes the Spice Girls look like The Beverley Sisters and the Kardashians tweet pictures of their thigh gaps, David and Victoria’s previous experiments with matching leather catsuits seem positively quaint.

Victoria is turning out to be one of the village elders of the celeb parish, a cross between Vivienne Westwood and Jane Asher.

If Celeb Land were a real community, she would be organising a bring-and-buy sale. And this week she sort of has.

A designer Victoria sponge range at a leading supermarket surely awaits. In limited edition regenerated custard and fish-finger flavour. All proceeds to charity, of course.

Inspirational Susanna is a 'perfect 9'

She may not be a 10 kind of girl, but BBC Breakfast girl Susanna Reid is a perfect 9

Deliciously acid Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood put the sequined boot into Susanna Reid last week.

‘She’s just not a 10 girl,’ he said, in a rare acknowledgment that his cobwebbed perfect 10 voting paddle actually exists.

But that’s exactly why BBC Breakfast presenter Susanna, right, is one of the show’s most popular contestants ever.

She’s doing her best without being showy and without being nauseatingly perfect. We can leave that to Abbey Clancy.

Susanna is an inspiration to us armchair dancers. She’s the ultimate 9: almost pro but with one foot on the ground.

People vote for her because they identify. If you went on the show, you would want to be exactly like her, wouldn’t you?

Even if you know you would be like a pigeon-toed Hairy Biker.

'Prison language' isn't just for boys

Women shouldn’t swear? What the frock? I’m not much of a one for four-letter words but I’ll happily stick two fingers up to that.

An American reviewer has criticised comedienne Sarah Silverman for trying to be like the guys in using rudeness in her act.

As a (rookie) stand-up, I avoid what my grandmother would have called ‘prison language’ not on principle, but just because it doesn’t really suit me.

Plus, you can’t tell if a joke is actually funny when you’re pressing the ‘laugh because I swore’ button.

Stand-up comedy has always been the place to say the things it’s wrong to say in everyday life. The problem is that swearing is now everywhere in everyday life.

Using it on stage is not exactly breaking a taboo. Which makes it all the more ridiculous for any man to tell a woman which words she can or can’t use.

Man up, my friend, it’s a show not an Austen novel.

Just when you thought the dance craze twerking might go away, up pop the UK’s National Twerking Championships.

Was there really a need to dignify bottom-wobbling (actual definition of twerking) with a championship?

Spare a thought for the ample-buttocked among us, who compete discreetly every day with zero fanfare and no hope of a prize.